Confession
by DarkElements10
Summary: Deleted scene from chapter 32 of Out of Doubt. Zack learns something that he never expected. Short one-shot.


**Confession**

**By: Riley**

**Summary – Deleted scene from chapter 32 of Out of Doubt. Zack learns something that he never expected. Short one-shot.**

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_"You won't be corrupted, Zack," Riley said. "You wouldn't do those things." He had moved back. She moved to close the distance._

_"How can you be so sure?" Zack raised an eyebrow._

_"Well, two reasons." She held up her thumb. "First, it's not your character. Of course you felt a rush from the power. Then, you pushed it away. You didn't grab at it, you pushed it away."_

_"Don't be so sure," Zack muttered._

_"And reason number two;" she held up her index finger before pointing at herself. "You have me."_

_Zack looked skeptical. "Do I?"_

_"Yes." Riley nodded._

_That drained the anger and frustration from him like someone had pulled a plug. For a long moment he was lost, gazing into her eyes. She was very close. His heart shifted to a deeper rhythm that vibrated his whole body. There were just inches between them. He closed the distance by half, stopped._

_"I can't kiss you when I know DalFang is glaring at me like that," Zack said as he motioned to the wolf who was sitting on the floor behind them._

_Riley turned and looked at her guardian sharply; he rolled his eyes and pressed his muzzle to the floor, moving his paws over his eyes._

_"How about now?"_

Zack paced the room, feeling the weight of the fire element stone in his pocket. It bumped against his leg each time he took a step. It was heavy enough, coupled with the fact that he had lost enough weight from the poor diet they had, that his pants were starting to slip down. Every three steps or so he would have to pull them back up. It was just a cruel reminder of everything that they had been through. But he had, at least, found a sense of happiness despite everything.

"What are you thinking about?" Riley asked, looking at him funny. "I mean, if you even know how to think at all, usually you'd just get this blank look on your face."

"I'm wondering when life is going to get easier for us," Zack replied. He rolled his eyes. "I mean, that's a stretch considering we don't even know if we'll step on the equivalent of a landmine every time we step out of the door." He snorted. "Can you believe that I even want to be back on the SS Tipton right now? Be back in school, annoy Moseby and Tutweiller, try to trick London in giving me some of her money that I don't think that I'd even see by the time I retired."

"Huh, the SS Tipton," Riley lightly shook her head. "You know, when we left, I never thought that we'd go back there." She smirked at him. "But, as usual, you and Cody got in enough trouble that we had to come back and save your asses."

"I'm sorry, but I'm sure I've saved you more often than you'd like to admit, Miss. Damsel in distress," Zack replied.

"I'm _not_ a damsel in distress," Riley shot back, sharply, her eyes flashing. She then sighed, running a hand through her hair. "But that does remind me of something. What, with everything that we've gone through these past couple of years…and the fact that you've finally heard me say what you've always wanted to hear." She gave a soft smile as Zack looked at her.

"I'm sorry, what was that again?" Zack feigned innocence. "You have to remember, I don't have a great memory like Cody."

"Nice, try, but I'm not saying it again." Riley held out her hands and a flame appeared over them, the edges black, while the rest of the flame was a mixture of red and orange. "The time that we spent apart, you know I figured that you would have gotten together with someone else. So I wasn't completely surprised when I heard about Maya."

Zack let out a long breath through his nose.

He had only been in love three times, the first being Maddie Fitzpatrick, the second being Riley, and the third Maya. Though he wasn't sure if he was actually in love with her. They had gone out a few times and they were starting to get series, then everything started to happen with Geneva and Gattaca and they had to leave the SS Tipton. He wasn't sure how things would still be going if Bailey hadn't figured out what was going on. He was sure that he and Cody could have kept the secret even longer, but things soon spiraled out of control as they usually did. He had even thought about telling Maya about what was going on, but didn't want to put her in that danger, especially since they had been followed by WingzCorp everywhere they went.

_Of course that was before we knew that WingzCorp was really on our side, _Zack reminded himself. He pushed the thought way, not wanting to dwell too much on what he would inevitably think of after that. How Koto had died to help him, even after all of the years of the constant attacks.

"But still, there is something I haven't told you," Riley continued, grabbing Zack's attention again. She hesitated for a moment before continuing. "You never bothered me so much that I actually hated you. And over the years I even started to tolerate you before admitting that you were my friend. It was obvious you cared. But the only thing that I couldn't admit was the fact that I did, finally fall in love with you."

Zack listened quietly.

"I just couldn't admit it, not because I was ashamed or anything, but because I didn't want the wrong people to find out and have it used against me. It's bad enough that my family is always put in danger, having to think about the person that I…actually love…being in danger. It's part of the reason why it was so easy to leave the SS Tipton, apart from the information that we needed to find."

Zack crossed his arms over his chest, sticking his hands into his armpits. His eyebrows lowered as he took in everything that she had just told him. He knew, deep down, that there was a chance that she felt the same way, but he didn't dwell on it enough so that it would take over his life. He would be lying if he said that she didn't impact his life in a big way, she was the one that had been there when he awakened to his powers. And he always thought that there was some sort of 'soul mate' or 'destiny' thing going on when he realized that they had the same element.

But now…

"When did you finally know?" Zack twisted his mouth to the side. There were a lot of questions he wanted to ask, but that was the first one that came to mind.

"Remember that time that the SS Tipton stopped at that one…place…" Riley rolled her eyes, realizing how dumb that sounded. "Sorry, but I quickly lost track of where we were, especially if were leaving all the time. Anyway, the one place that had the chocolate factory that Cody, Bailey, Rhu, and I went to where you could make chocolates and write whatever you wanted on it? When, I didn't know this until I got back, you were trying to throw that birthday party for Maya with Sean Kingston?"

Zack's eyes widened. "You knew then?"

"Yeah," Riley blushed lightly. "I was going to tell you…on the chocolate that I made, but I ended up giving it to my brothers and our guardians to eat. And we left shortly after that, so…" She shrugged. "I didn't really have to worry about it then."

"God, I'm sorry." Zack shook his head.

Riley looked at him funny. "No worries, don't apologize. I mean, I couldn't expect you to wait that whole time for me to figure out everything. I mean, I'm surprised that I could with the major amount of stress we've been under. I'm surprised I'm not completely crazy."

"We're all crazy in our own ways," Zack reassured her. "So even if you were, I probably wouldn't notice." He ran a hand through his hair. "But…it's funny because when I started to try and move on, that's when you realized your feelings…and then you still didn't say anything until years later."

"I figured, if I'm going to die, I might as well make you happy at some point." She smirked at him. "And if death really is in our immediate future, then it's going to have to try hard because…I'm going to hold on as long as I can."

"That's good." Zack reached out and grabbed onto her hand. "Because it's going to be hard for me to let go."

**THE END**

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**A/N: **For those of you that had been around when I was working on Grow Up and Just Another Day in Paradise (which were two stories that went through the episodes of SLOZAC and SLOD but with our characters) you would have seen how Zack's and Riley's relationship had changed over the years since they were 11, when the series started, to 17 or 18 when it ended. If I had gone all the way through SLOD, you would have seen the moment that was mentioned in this one-shot.

I hope you guys liked it.

Cheers,

-Riles


End file.
